2) Housebound
I watched this film entirely based on the recommendations of my horror-loving friends…and I’m very glad I did.
Coming out of New Zealand, Housebound is a haunted house movie combined with a legitimate mystery/thriller and undercut by some wry comedy. After a failed robbery attempt, young felon Kylie is placed under house arrest and must return to her childhood home to live with her mother and stepfather; a sensor strapped to her ankle ensures that she can’t move beyond the property line. But her mother is convinced that the house is haunted, and has been for the entire time they lived there. Cue bumps in the night, a weird talking mechanical bear, the creepy guy next door, and a ghost-hunting parole officer, and you’ve got a scary-funny ride.
Housebound is a unique film: unlike many horror comedies, it asks the question of how fairly normal people would actually react to a haunted house, with Kylie screaming and flailing at first and then trying to get out of the house rather than just put up with it. Faced finally with having to deal with the ghost, Kylie buckles down and does her best, in the most incompetent and human way possible.